One of the most important services that unions provide to their members is representation and due process in the unlikely event of company-initiated disciplinary action. Although most pilots are able to successfully navigate their careers without having to use these benefits, many pilots consider that these benefits alone are worth the price of dues.
These "job defense" benefits are provided to America West pilots in Sections 18 & 19 of our contract. Section 19 details the "due process" that the company is required to follow prior to and after imposing discipline upon a pilot. Section 18 contains provisions for representation and witnesses, including the following language:
"...a Pilot shall have the right to be represented at any Company hearing or investigation by an Association representative (including Association attorneys) or another Pilot on the America West Airlines Pilots' System Seniority List with the approval of the Association, provided the Company has been notified in writing..."
Notice that this provision specifically requires your representative to be an "Association representative" or an "Association-approved representative". Should USAPA become our bargaining agent, this will give them the right to determine who represents you at disciplinary hearings. Meaning, your job will be in the hands of whoever USAPA appoints to represent you.
Considering the escalating emotions out on the line, we should all be particularly concerned about the increased potential for conflict and subsequent company disciplinary action. You may have heard about some of the recent events that have taken place since the election began:
Ø An official USAPA volunteer, who has been sending harassing and threatening emails to many West pilots for the past few months, is being investigated by the company after he allegedly distributed an email that promotes the Ku Klux Klan.
Ø An ALPA (East) volunteer was physically assaulted by several USAPA volunteers and supporters.
Ø USAPA formally announced an intimidation campaign that will run throughout the election. Any pilots not wearing USAPA lanyards will be publicly confronted and belittled by USAPA representatives, in direct violation of the company's "zero-tolerance" policy.
Ø A USAPA supporter shoved a PHX gate agent after he verbally confronter her about wearing an ALPA lanyard. Both the verbal and physical assault was launched by the USAPA supporter in full view of passengers.
Who is going to represent you at a disciplinary hearing?
Allow us to introduce Mr. Elwood "Woody" Menear, Chairman of USAPA's Job Defense Committee:
[Source: Philadelphia Inquirer January 15, 2002]
"A US Airways pilot was released from jail yesterday after being arrested for making what authorities said were 'inappropriate' comments on Sunday at a security checkpoint at Philadelphia International Airport. Police charged the pilot, Elwood Menear, 46, of Annville, Pa., with making terroristic threats and engaging in disorderly conduct."
Perhaps some will argue that this incident is not a fair judgment of Mr. Menear. After all, we were all frustrated by some of the security measures imposed immediately following 9/11. Many of us have made "comments" in the security line as a result of that frustration. Perhaps many will also argue that Mr. Menear's brush with near-unemployment makes him exceptionally qualified to oversee all job defense cases (by the way, we wonder who saved Mr. Menear's job after this incident).
If we take a look at some of Mr. Menear's other activities since 2002, we might begin to notice a pretty well-defined pattern of behavior:
· Allegedly sent an email containing a deliberate racial slur to a member of the America West MEC.
· Composed and widely distributed an email entitled "The Chicken-[expletive] actions of Herndon and the West reps" that maliciously and falsely accused some West pilots of harassment (isn't that the pot calling the kettle black?).
· In response to a letter AWAPPA attorney Jeff Freund wrote that discounted USAPA's legal analysis, Mr. Menear articulated his own legal analysis in a letter that he distributed via email to some pilots. The core of his analysis was, "in much the same way that threatening lawsuits is pointless, (either file it, or shut up), so is this exercise in hollow threat hurling."
Worse yet, Mr. Menear composed the following letter that was, until very recently, posted on the USAPA website. It's one thing if Mr. Menear's uncontrollable hate-filled outbursts occur in front of a limited, private audience, however it's quite another when Mr. Menear is speaking as a duly-appointed representative of USAPA. When you read the following letter, keep in mind that it was posted on the USAPA website as an official communication from the guy who USAPA has appointed to defend your job. We've highlighted one significant comment in the letter, otherwise it is presented unedited:
Fellow US Airways Pilots,
I've allowed a few weeks to pass by, since last writing about ALPA's travails with Mr. Nicolau's infamous "award". I was hoping the dust would settle, that Capt. Prater would search the area just South of his waistband and miraculously rediscover his masculinity.
I hoped too, that the ALPA Lawyers would have been muzzled, (as all lawyers should be), and that policy making would have returned to the stewardship of the Executive Council, with the attorneys offering advice on how to make the E.C.'s policies work.
Alas, I might as well hoped for Doug Parker to sober up; some things are just contrary to the structure of our Universe. Actually, our CEO has the brains and fortitude to overcome his addictions, if he so chooses...... ALPA, I have concluded, is hamstrung from making the Right decision, by its very structure.
For many of you, this part of the letter is a re-hash of previous observations on my part. Still, they bear repeating, since events of the last couple of weeks have reinforced my convictions about ALPA.
ALPA serves too many competing airlines to be effective for any of them. In the never ending quest for dues-money, ALPA have sacrificed Union principles, to instead pander to the cause-de-jour of which ever airline holds the most votes.... usually UAL or Northwest. This is how the merger language (which served the association for decades) was changed in a couple of years to assuage the fears of UAL/NWA - of the possible implications of a merger with "senior-old-USAir". What irony.
All of the above, you probably know. What has become clear during the last couple of weeks, at least to me, is that:
a) ALPA National ain't going to make a decision
B) Your US Airways ALPA Master Executive Council are (slowly.... ever so slowly) sliding in the direction of a negotiated accommodation to the Nicolau Award.
Oh, Jack Stephan and company have not said so, but in his August 01 Chairman's Message Jack stresses (paragraph #4), "separate operations". Jack goes on to assure you that these "separate operations" will be permanent and will include preemptive contract language to assure that they agree they won't be used during any future merger.... etc., etc.
Well, friends, one would have thought (for example) that the "preemptive language" of the previous fifty-years, would have made your pension strictly off limits, too...... funny thing about contract language, isn't it? And the same joker(s) who were more clever than Siegel at the bankruptcy game, have come up with this gambit, to simultaneously accommodate Prater's demand that the two MEC's negotiate, and still maintain our insistence that Nicolau "go away."
Our "clever boys" are at it, again. Ask yourselves, who in the last couple of months has moved toward a position of accommodation? Has ALPA National moved?....that would be, NO. Has the MEC of that perpetual money-loser, America West.... (God, it pisses me off that we had to save their jobs!!) moved? The answer, again, is NO! As usual, in our (recent) history, we at the MEC of US Airways, servants to ALPA National..... and oh, yes... those pilots, too, have started down the slippery slope of accommodation.
My take on this turn of events is simple: "Jack and Company" know that "Prater and Company" are never, never, never going to make a simple, declarative rejection of the Nicolau Award.... period. This, even though Prater knows this is a wrong-headed finding, and based on ALPA's weak-assed, mealy mouthed, says-nothing Merger Policy Language, as dictated, over ten years ago, by shortsighted pilots at UAL/NWA.
So, Jack (and friends) have "cleverly" (in their view) threaded the needle; keeping ALPA National happy (a prime directive, believe me), and still not caving in (yet). Just wait until the next "crisis" of timing..... a merger, sale, threatened downsizing, etc. The pall-mall race to slap on a quick-fix will be on.
Still..... I honestly don't blame Jack and the MEC. The structure of membership in ALPA National mandates these impossibly conflicting loyalties. As officers of ALPA National, the MEC must salute the "Mother Ship", first, last and always, even at the expense (if necessary) of the pilots of US Airways since, in the view of National, we are cogs in a much bigger wheel........ I am totally serious about this..... ask your Local Reps.
These reasons..... and so many more, are why, in the last couple-three months or so, (insert here a very large number, which I am sworn not to share...... but which number makes me giggle with delight!)- of your fellow US Airways pilots have taken the one-minute and thirty- seconds required to fill out and send in the Request for Representative Election Card, that is finding its way to your home or P.O. Box, right now.
Fellows (and Ladies), some of your ALPA Reps are telling you that changing union representation at this time is ill advised. First of all, the card only asks for an election to chose ALPA, or The US Airline Pilots Association..... it does not 'change' unions. Only you, the pilots of this airline can make that decision, and will do so during a future election.
I don't know about you, but I dislike having someone tell me that one choice (ALPA) is somehow preferable to two.... it insults my intelligence. Would any of you set off in your airliners, on a 3,000 mile journey, without an alternate? That is all this card and election are about; an alternate, should (when), ALPA finally lets the cat out of its cellophane bag and declares, "Sorry, US Airways pilots..... screwed again!"
We will have months after the rest of the cards come in and the election is set, to evaluate the two options that we have now given ourselves by filling out and sending in the little card. If in those months, ALPA has come to an epiphany, and actually become a union of principle again..... hey, vote them in. If not, you have an alternative.... if and only if, you've sent in the card. If not..... oh, well, Mother ALPA will take care of you... just like always.......
Giving the constraints of being servants to ALPA National, first, and the pilots of this airline, second, our MEC have done, kinda' okay. Imagine though, how quickly and decisively they could act, if they only had to consider your needs...... fill in your card, I did.
Fraternally,
Woody Menear
skyclassics@comcast.net
